Syrian blood etches a new line in the sand

This article by Pepe Escobar was originally published in the Asia Times.

Once upon a time, early in the previous century, a line in the sand was drawn, from Acre to Kirkuk. Two colonial powers – Britain and France – nonchalantly divided the Middle East between themselves; everything north of the line in the sand was France’s; south, it was Britain’s.

Many blowbacks – and concentric tragedies – later, a new line in the sand is being drawn by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Between Syria and Iraq, they want it all. Talk about the return of the repressed; now, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Gulf Cooperation Council compound, they’re in bed with their former colonial masters.

Blow by blow

No matter what militarized Western corporate media spins, there’s no endgame in Syria – yet. On the contrary; the sectarian game is just beginning.

It’s 1980s Afghanistan all over again. The over 100 heavily armed gangs engaged in civil war in Syria are overflowing with Gulf Cooperation Council funds financing their Russian RPGs bought on the black market. Salafi-jihadis cross into Syria in droves – not only from Iraq but also Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan, following enraged calls by their imams. Kidnapping, raping and slaughtering pro-Assad regime civilians is becoming the law of the land.

They go after Christians with a vengeance. [1] They force Iraqi exiles in Damascus to leave, especially those settled in Sayyida Zainab, the predominantly Shi’ite neighborhood named after Prophet Muhammad’s grand-daughter, buried in the beautiful local mosque. The BBC, to its credit, at least followed the story. [2]

They perform summary executions; Iraq’s deputy interior minister Adnan al-Assadi told AFP how Iraqi border guards saw the Free Syrian Army (FSA) take control of a border outpost and then “executed 22 Syrian soldiers in front of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers”.

The Bab al-Hawa crossing between Syria and Turkey was overrun by no less than 150 multinational self-described mujahideen [3] – coming from Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Chechnya and even France, many proclaiming their allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

They burned a lot of Turkish trucks. They shot their own promo video. They paraded their al-Qaeda flag. And they declared the whole border area an Islamic state.

Hand over your terrorist ID

There’s no way to understand the Syrian dynamics without learning that most FSA commanders are not Syrians, but Iraqi Sunnis. The FSA could only capture the Abu Kamal border crossing between Syria and Iraq because the whole area is controlled by Sunni tribes viscerally antagonistic towards the al-Maliki government in Baghdad. The free flow of mujahideen, hardcore jihadis and weapons between Iraq and Syria is now more than established.

The idea of the Arab League – behaving as NATO-GCC’s fully robed spokesman – offering exile to Bashar al-Assad may be as ridiculous as the notion of the CIA supervising which mujahideen and jihadi outfits may have access to the weapons financed by Qatar and the Saudis.

At first, it might have been just a bad joke. After all, the exile offer came from those exact same paragons of democracy, the House of Saud and Qatar, who control the Arab League and are financing the mujahideen and the anti-Syria jihad.

Baghdad, though, publicly condemned the exile offer. And the aftermath – in fact on the same day – was worthy of The Joker (yes, Batman’s foe); a wave of anti-Shi’ite bombings in Iraq, with over 100 people dead, duly claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qaeda’s local franchise. Spokesman Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi energetically urged the Sunni tribes in Anbar and Nineveh to join the jihad and topple the “infidel” government in Baghdad.

The mujahideen/jihadi back and forth between Syria and Iraq has been more than confirmed by Izzat al-Shahbandar, a senior member of Iraq’s Parliament and close aide to Prime Minister al-Maliki. Baghdad even has updated lists. The crossover could only spawn more frenetic Orwellian newspeak, nailed by the website Moon of Alabama. [4]

Mujahideen and jihadis active in Iraq are now “Iraqi insurgents”. And mujahideen and jihadis active in Syria remain the usual “Syrian rebels”. They have been all decommissioned as “terrorists”. Under this logic, the Colorado Batman shooter may also be described as an “insurgent”.

Follow the money

As it stands, the romanticized Syrian “rebels” plus the insurgents formerly known as terrorists cannot win against the Syria military – not even with the Saudis and Qataris showering them with loads of cash and weapons.

Nor is there any evidence the regime is contemplating a retreat to the Alawite mountains in northern Syria, as evoked by this collective foreign policy blog discussion. After all the “rebels” do not control any territory.

What’s certain is who would profit from Syria being progressively balkanized. The House of Saud and Qatar would love nothing better than to have the civil war exported to Iraq and Lebanon; in their very narrow calculations, that would eventually yield fellow Sunni regimes.

So expect Saudi and Qatari funds buying every well-connected Syrian regime apparatchik in sight – even while the urban Sunni bourgeosie still has not abandoned the ship.

And as the civil war spreads out, a tsunami of weapons will keep inundating Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and of course Turkey, boosting assorted guerrilla outfits, Kurdish included – yet one more facet of now ostracized neo-Ottoman Turkey impotently watching nation states carved out of that 1920s colonial line in the sand being smashed.

Strategically, this will always be a war by proxy; essentially Saudi Arabia vs Iran – with the House of Saud behind hardcore Islamists of all colors compared to Qatar supporting “its” Muslim Brotherhood. But most of all this is the US-NATO-GCC vs Iran.

Israel’s motives go way beyond the Saudi/Qatari sectarian lust. Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has just excavated a Bushism – calling Iran-Syria-Hezbollah an “axis of evil”. What Tel Aviv wants in the long run is clear; for Washington, Obama administration or not, to bring down the axis.

Meanwhile, this long-term goal does not prevent Defense Minister Ehud Barak from getting crazy – speculating on an invasion of Syria based on a hypothetical transfer of Syrian anti-aircraft missiles or even chemical weapons to Hezbollah.

Washington for its part would love at least a pliable/puppet Sunni regime in Damascus to turbo-charge the encircling of Iran – without increasing Israel’s substantial fears. Meanwhile, what passes for “smart power” is no more than glorified wishful thinking. Here in detail is how pro-Israel functionaries in the US are designing post-Assad Syria. [5]

Meet the new Bane

For all its production values, NATO’s jihad – in conjunction with al-Qaeda affiliates and copycats – still has not delivered regime change. UN Security Council sanctions won’t be forthcoming, as Beijing and Moscow have already stressed three times. So Plan Bs keep surfacing all the time. The latest is straight from the Iraq playbook; Damascus will attack civilians with chemical weapons. This lasted only for a few news cycles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already made it clear; regime change is anathema, especially for a reason that eludes most in the West – jihadis at the gates of Damascus means they are a stone’s throw from the Caucasus, the possible new pearl in a lethal collar bound to destabilize Muslim Russia.

Blowback meanwhile is ready to strike like the Medusa. What is for all practical purposes NATO-GCC mujahideen/jihadi death squads will be more than happy to bleed Syria across sectarian lines – in the sand and especially in urban areas. It’s hunting season now, not only for Alawites but also Christians (10% of the population).

A foreign policy that privileges Sunni jihadis formerly known as terrorists to create a “democratic” state in the Middle East seems to have been conjured by Bane – the Hannibal Lecter meets Darth Vader bad guy in The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of the Batman trilogy. And yes, we are his creators. While the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity, a masked Sunni jihadi superman is slouching towards Damascus to be born.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His most recent book is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

Genocidal Shiite fanatics ignore the real issue.
The real issue is that the majority, or shall I say vast majority, of Syrians are fed up with 50 years of cultic Shiite tyrrany and dictatorship.

The people of Syria simply wants to be ruled by rulers of their choosing. The people of Syria are no longer willing to accept totalitarianism, dictatorship, and cultic oppression in the name of fighting imperialism and Israel.

The Shiite fanatics don’t accept this basic logic,which underscores their aversion of democracy.

“Israel’s motives go way beyond the Saudi/Qatari sectarian lust. Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has just excavated a Bushism – calling Iran-Syria-Hezbollah an “axis of evil”. What Tel Aviv wants in the long run is clear; for Washington, Obama administration or not, to bring down the axis.”
Well said.

Also:
” It’s hunting season now, not only for Alawites but also Christians (10% of the population).

A foreign policy that privileges Sunni jihadis formerly known as terrorists to create a “democratic” state in the Middle East seems to have been conjured by Bane – the Hannibal Lecter meets Darth Vader bad guy in The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of the Batman trilogy. And yes, we are his creators. While the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity, a masked Sunni jihadi superman is slouching towards Damascus to be born.”

@Khalid
“The Shiites who slaughter babies abd toddlers in the name of Hussein, need one thing: one bullet in the back of their heads.”
Something to think about Khalid. If you continue with these hostile threatening posts, well my money is on you being banned and every post you’ve written being deleted. All that time you’ve spent merrily typing away will have been wasted. Think, your millions of groupies will have no pixilated pixel memorabilia to cherish, how will they cope?

Alex your words bring shame on you. You claim to be a Palestinian. You deny being Shia, so you are either Christian or Sunni then. If you are a Sunni Muslim then you seem to have very little regard for the Quran and Sunnah that Allah s.w.t. gave us. You prefer to put your trust in a deviant sect rather than trusting in Allah and His Messenger.

Then you say such comments as this

“Please, leave me and my L alone,”

this shows exactly what sort of a man you are, to speak like that is certainly not from the Islamic adab that I have been taught about. Have I not said that I have never met nor communicated with KA?

Who-Me and the childish remarks such as addressing KA as Laura on this thread and the constant name calling are one thing – but are you not a Muslim man Alex? Even though you hide behind a christian name.

The new law of the land:
“It’s 1980s Afghanistan all over again. The over 100 heavily armed gangs engaged in civil war in Syria are overflowing with Gulf Cooperation Council funds financing their Russian RPGs bought on the black market. Salafi-jihadis cross into Syria in droves – not only from Iraq but also Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan, following enraged calls by their imams. Kidnapping, raping and slaughtering pro-Assad regime civilians is becoming the law of the land.”

L: “The Quran tells me all I need to know about Jewish arrogance, I often say to Gilad I don’t need to read his book or listen to his lectures because the One who Created the Bani Israel told us all of their traits. …
Regards this website it is very Jew Centric even the humour and the posters who want to be so clever and poke fun are just typical, of the whole “it’s all about the Jews” mentality. “

“In Aleppo itself the regime is preparing for an attack with its tanks and helicopters … My hope is that they’ll get the necessary answer from the real sons of Syria,” Erdogan said earlier in remarks broadcast on Turkish TV channels.

Even armed and funded by several foreign ‘benefactors,’ the Foreign Stipend Army has no other “successes” but slaughter of civilians; they retreat from the Syrian Army:

“The armed opposition fighters were encircled in the city several days ago and have since tried to break the blockade but failed to overpower the government army resistance and were compelled to retreat to the city.

The troops have also destroyed several truckloads of rebels in Damascus suburbs and have seized the rebels’ arms caches.

The military set free two Italian engineers who were abducted by militants.

We should not allow the dramatic power of the most visible narrative, the struggle between oppressed and oppressor, to drown out the sad reality of another less noble story line – namely that this is still, at least for now, a sectarian conflict.

That this is the dominant narrative, the one that is most controlling and the one we should pay most attention to, is suggested by Vali Nasr’s 2006 post mortem on Iraq. Nasr observed that we mistakenly “thought of politics as the relationship between individuals and the state” rather than recognizing “that people in the Middle East see politics also as the balance of power among communities.”

We would do well to keep that in mind as the Syrian end game approaches. We should accelerate work to get the minorities into the game against the regime, hastening its end and broadening its opposition. The Christian and Kurdish communities have historic ties to the West that should play to our advantage in this.

Some posters here claim that the resistance to Assad is purely foreign, yet I posted an article where one of the most respected scholars in the UK clearly said the Syrians do not need more men.

“It has been confirmed by scholars and military personnel living in Syria that they have no need for foreign Muslim men intending to join the cause. I have personally contacted a number of scholars, activists, and students of knowledge as well as a Syrian scholar (who is a member of a board of scholars and activists) in order to consult with him in regards to those who wish to travel to Syria to aid in repelling the oppressive regime. He informed me that they urge foreign brothers not to travel to Syria to participate in military activity. He stated firstly that that this is the opinion of the vast majority of scholars and activists in Syria (that they do not need men), and secondly, such participation will lead to many problems that are evident to those who know the situation from inside. In other words, the obligation of Jihad for Muslims outside of Syria is of a non-combative nature”

2/ Even if Muslim some men go there to fight, in Islam it is an obligation on every Muslim to try to help his oppressed brothers, so to us they are not foreign they are just brothers. Also to us the man made borders which non Muslims call Syria are irrelevant Muslims refer to the area as Sham, the borders mean little to those who understand the Ummah as one body.

So where posters on here constantly imply that foreign fighters are sent or recruited by the west in fact the opposite are true. A hint about the intention of the west towards these men is made in the article by Sheik Haitham. Yes, they may use them to get rid of Assad but after that they will kill them or at least keep tabs on them.

3/ For me and for the majority of Muslims the goal is to establish Islam as the governance in Muslim lands. This is the exact opposite of what Israel/America and Russia want. It was referred to directly by the Russian foreign minister recently that America seems to have forgotten what has happened in Egypt and in Libya, meaning that the Arab spring has allowed Islam to rise.

To conclude, it is safe to assume that the real war, is the war to establish Islam and the war against it. Most posters on here either do not understand the Islamic element to this conflict, but I suspect some do and are intent on spreading misinformation about this conflict and the ARab spring in general to undermine the Arab spring in Middle Eastern countries where Islam is in a period of revival.

What about Bahrain is that sectarian? Shia majority protesting against a Sunni ruling minority?

The people have been killed oppressed and tortured by a dictatorship for decades they want to get rid of him. The fact that the leadership is Shia was not relevant the same happened in Egypt and Tunisia without sectarian division.

People are being killed by the government using heavy weaponary in civilian areas.

But for some reason posters on this site find that perfectly acceptable.

Laura, firstly I am not Bush’s CIA man. I doubt he would consider me remotely useful in the job. But Hayden uses Nasr to suggest that there is an agenda behind the ” most visible narrative”.

It seems to me that there are many overlaps with what happened in Libya, including that the SNC/FSA hoped to draw in NATO in the same way as the NTC did in Libya.

Furthermore, if the division was already along sectarian lines (ie a Shiite minority ruling over a Sunni majority) then there were integral sectarian considerations. The same obviously applies to Bahrain and indeed I recall in the earliest days of the Bahrain uprising that there were many pro-Al Khalifa keyboard warriors making much noise about it being a sectarian issue.

I think what is happening now in Syria is far more influenced by what happened in Libya than what happened in Egypt and Tunisia.

“People are being killed by the government using heavy weaponary in civilian areas.

But for some reason posters on this site find that perfectly acceptable.”

I have no idea who you are suggesting finds it “perfectly acceptable”. I think it was however inevitable after elements of the opposition took up arms.

Many reports seem to suggest that insurgents are entering the areas, which then draws a response from the regime which was already noted for being brutal.

What intersted me most about Hayden’s diatribe was the second bit I highlighted:

“We should accelerate work to get the minorities into the game against the regime, hastening its end and broadening its opposition.”

What “work” have the Americans and their allies been doing to “get the minorities into the game against the regime”? Why do they want to “broaden the opposition”?

“What “work” have the Americans and their allies been doing to “get the minorities into the game against the regime”? Why do they want to “broaden the opposition”?”

Roy – I believe that there is (Western) concern that Assad falling quickly will leave a vacuum where chaos and sectarian killing might become a reality. There are countries working with the two main opposition groups to form a cohesive government should Assad go. For America the biggest nightmare is for the fighters themselves (Sunni and Islamic) and the M.B. to gain power in yet another country. If we have Islamic parties in Libya Tunisia Egypt and Syria then there is (for them) the danger of them becoming a cohesive force of many millions of Muslims, which is exactly what we want and what they don’t want. Hence the USA giving as much money and support as it can to small liberal democratic movements in Egypt.

At a recent meeting of the opposition in Cairo the Syrian Kurds walked out, but to avoid one group (Islamic) having too much power the minorities will be supported by the west.

i may have got the wrong impression, but the impression i have got is that LS and KA do not consider Shiites as Muslims, so that their idea of a sectarian conflict will not coincide with that of most Western observers, who include both Shia and Sunni in their use of the term Muslim. if so, then the apparent disagreement may be not about the facts themselves, but only about their description.

Laura’s term makes me wonder if a sect is deviant does that mean that each of its members is, individually, deviant?

and then, what about little children? at what age do they become definitively deviant? i suppose it depends on level of development rather than just age. the quicker a Shia child develops, the younger it can be classed as a deviant. would Laura let her kids play with Shia kids?

one of the hallmarks of advanced theocracy has always been such integration of religious and security matters. it makes sense at the bedrock level of infrastructure costs, but the ideological and spiritual benefits far outstrip in value such merely mercenary considerations.

Roy, I have some friends, a married couple, he is from Zanzibar she is from Tanzania – both refer to themselves as reverts or converts to Islam because they were raised in the Ismaili shia faith, until they found out that it was a deviant sect so they became Sunni.

They considered that they were not Muslim before.

Sunni are followers of the Sunnah or example of the Prophet Mohammed s.a.w. in other words we take the Quran as our main guidance with the authentic narrations in the books of hadith which describe how the Prophet Mohammed s.a.w. lived his life, how he took a decision etc etc so Sunni follow the Sunnah or example. Shia means sect or party.

etominusipi asked “what about little children? at what age do they become definitively deviant?”, and this seems to me be important to think about. It is surely the case that most Shia are Shia because they are born into that tradition. Last night we were treated to some horrific posts about Shia, which thankfully are no longer available for public consumption – but it disturbs me greatly that such division is possible merely because of what I’d say is ultimately an accident of birth.

I understand the main difference to be that the Shia would have kept the succession only to the family of the Prophet Mohammed s.a.w. excluding his close companions, in other words Ali r.a. would have been the successor. Also the hadith or narrations they follow are mainly from family members of the Prophet and a few of the companions whereas Sunnis accept all narrations which are proven authentic from family or companions.

That’s the start of it but after that it all gets a lot more messy and acrimonious. Of course if you asked a Shia they would naturally believe that they were correct and Sunnis are wrong.

The Muslims had one enemy Israel and its proxies until now.

Interesting to me would be if Islam is in the ascendency and Turkey, Syria, Jordon, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia even Morocco all became a united force would the Shia countries join the jama’ah (main body) of Muslims or not?

This is the mistake that the shia and Alex are making – allowing for division when a united force would be far stronger.

“Of course if you asked a Shia they would naturally believe that they were correct and Sunnis are wrong.”

I don’t think it surprising that most people born into a faith are unlikely to go round saying that their faith is wrong – especially in communities where by far the majority actively practice.

“This is the mistake that the shia and Alex are making – allowing for division when a united force would be far stronger.”

“the shia” is around 200 000 000 people isn’t it? I think Alex’s difference is political rather than theological. Even in the UK i know of activists who are ex-friends because they differ over the question of Syria.

I presume that “allowing for division” simply means they don’t agree with you?

Dear Roy
Despite the authot’s faith (Shiite or Sunni), his refences are Sunni
(sahih al-Bukhari, Arabic-English, Tradition 8.817)Sunnis considered this book as second revelation.

(Ibn Al-Athir, his history Al-Kamil, v3, p98). again this is a Sunni reference.

You will find the same story in many books such as History of Khalifa’s by Assiyouti, Al-bidaya wa Al-Nihaya (The beginning and the end) by Ibn Kathir.

As I said many times, the root of the diffences is political and has nothing to with religion.
There is no cmpulsion in religion,
Muslims follow the same Book, but read it differently. Quran is the message of living god to living human.
Hamayreh apointed himself not only as representative of 1.5 billion Muslims, but the represntative of God on earh, when he dared to tell who is a Muslim and who is not.
For him Muslim are only sunnis, not all Sunnis, Only the Shaytanhood

1-because they believe the Quran is distorted, and that the true Quran is hidden with the hidden imam who is hiding in a deep cave in Iraq since 1200 years.

2- Nearly 90% of the Shiite religion evolved after Islam was perfected in the Prophet’s life.

3-A shiite follows his “Imam” not the Quran.

4-Allah orders Muslim to start fasting Ramadan upon citing the new moon. The Shiites don’t accept this, they must do the opposite of what Sunni Muslims do.

5-Shites legalize lying to opponents.

6-The Shiites legalize a form of masked prostiution known as Mutaa whereby a woman may sleep with a hundred man per day. This has caused a huge problem in Shiite socities as thousands of people don’t know their real fathers.

7-When a shiite wants to make supplication, he doesn’t make it to God, but to an intermediary, an imam.

8-Shiites hurt themselves with daggers and swords on the day od Ashura. Neither Ali nor the rophet himself did that.

9-Shiites believe in Bedaa, the belief that God makes mistakes but rectifies them later.

10-The Shiites belive that the status of an imam is greater than that of the Prophet.

11-the Shiites believe that when the hidden imam returns, he will unearth the grave of Muhammed, burn the bones of Omar and Abu Bakr and cancel Islam and rule according to Israel or Jacob.

Also, one can not be a Shiite if he or she doesn’t curse and damn Sunni Muslims. We are their ultimate enemies. All Siite activities center on underming Sunnis. They wouldn’t fight the enemies of Islam, the opposite is true, they collude with them against Muslims.

There are hundreds of other aspects that put many Shiites outside the realm of Islam.

This seems likes a good way of thinking about the difference between sects and sectarianism:

“Imam al-Sadr used to say that sects are a blessing, but sectarianism is a curse. It’s a blessing to have this diversity of sects in Lebanon. But when there is strife among them, sectarianism is the worst thing for a country.”

etominusipi, even the most fanatical Sunni faction in Syria is not against the Shiites or even Alawits (more heretical) because of their beliefs. Sects and religions lived and coexisted for centuries with virtually no problem.

The problem is that the Alawites took control of the army and the state, under the pretext of the Baath party in Syria many years ago and are vehemently refusing to leave power.

It is a classical example of a fascist repressive regime clinging to power. And the Alawites and other Shiites in Iran and Iraq are helping the regime against the revolution, fearing loss of geopolitical interests.

Here is a good article about an Irish Libyan who is leading a brigade of 90% Syrian men in Northern Syria. As I explained before you Muslim men will go to fight where they want to end oppression and to hopefully bring a more Islamic government in future.

Look at the sick twisted disturbed agent provocateur zionists, who someone who shall remain nameless mentioned were better than the Syrians, enjoying the spectacular from Zionist occupied Golan Heights (much like they did when Gaza was being bombarded in Op cast Lead):

“This time a Democrat administration is using the Arab Spring to get rid of an inconvenient leader. No need to invade Syria or risk American lives. Just use discrete American guidance and arms supplied by American allies in the region to make sure that a home-grown insurgency has enough of the right stuff to win an insurrection. “You’ll notice in the last couple of months, the opposition has been strengthened,” a “senior U.S. Official” told the New York Times on July 20. “Now we’re ready to accelerate that.” U.S. Officials have been selectively leaking information on the supposedly clandestine American involvement in the Syrian conflict, an apparent effort to shape public opinion by suggesting that the United States is helping elements of the opposition, without explaining how they can tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

“We do not plan to take any part in measures carrying out European Union decisions directed against Syria,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday.

“Among other things we will not consider requests and give consent to the search of ships sailing under the Russian flag, nor to the use of other restrictive measures,” the statement added.

On July 25, Moscow condemned the new round of European Union sanctions against Damascus, saying the measures taken by the European Union “can be considered a declaration of a sea and air blockade of Syria.”

“Russia does not recognize them (sanctions) and believes them to be counter-productive.”

“The Russian military warned Friday that any attempt by Syrian rebels to attack a Russian military base at the Syrian port of Tartus would be “rebuffed immediately.”

“If the armed Syrian opposition ventures to implement their threat and to attack the Russian naval supplies and maintenance facility, Russia has ample capabilities in the region now to provide an adequate response. We won’t recommend hotheads in the Syrian opposition doing that,” a source in the Russian General Staff told the Interfax news agency.

“The Syrian side, too, has taken corresponding measures to enhance the naval supplies and maintenance base’s protection and defense,” he said.”

i get the impression that the zionazis want to get russia involved fighting their mercs and death squads.

“The role of war propaganda is paramount not only in moulding public opinion into accepting a war agenda, but also in establishing a consensus within the upper echelons of the decision-making process. A selective form of war propaganda intended for “Top Officials” (TOPOFF) in government agencies, intelligence, the Military, law enforcement, etc. is intended to create an unbending consensus in favor of War and the Police State.

For the war project to go ahead, it is essential that both politicians and military planners are rightfully committed to leading the war “in the name of justice and democracy”. For this to occur, they must firmly believe in their own propaganda, namely that war is “an instrument of peace and democracy”.

They have no concern for the devastating impacts of advanced weapons systems, routinely categorized as “collateral damage”, let alone the meaning and significance of pre-emptive warfare, using nuclear weapons.

Wars are invariably decided upon by civilian leaders and interest groups rather than by the military. War serves dominant economic interests which operate from behind the scenes, behind closed doors in corporate boardrooms, in the Washington think tanks, etc.

Realities are turned upside down. War is peace. The Lie becomes the Truth.

War propaganda, namely media lies, constitutes the most powerful instrument of warfare.

Without media disinformation, the US-NATO led war agenda would collapse like a deck of cards. The legitimacy of the war criminals in high office would be broken.

It is therefore essential to disarm not only the mainstream media but also a segment of the self proclaimed “progressive” alternative media, which has provided legitimacy to NATO’s “Responsibility to protect” (R2P) mandate, largely with a view to dismantling the antiwar movement.”

Western reporters clearly tend to assess opposition sources less critically than Syrian government sources. That bias may be justified, but civil wars are rarely fought by angels. Horrible things are done on all sides.

The Western media also seem to overlook the fact that the Syrian government is doing what most governments do when faced with an insurrection. They use whatever force they have to stamp it out, whether it’s Sherman marching through Georgia, or Israel pounding Gaza.

You may not like the Assad family, but Western governments did business with it (and still do with a number of other Middle East dictatorships) for decades despite its behavior.

The pattern in the reporting of the Syrian civil war suggests the opposition (possibly in collaboration with western governments) are trying to manipulate the media. Headlines of increasingly bigger “massacres” of innocent “civilians” and reports of serial defections by regime generals and other officials all tend to give the impression that the opposition is on a roll and the regime is on its last legs. These reports may or may not be accurate, but they should treated with a bit of circumspection.

Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I’m not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I’m referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan’s dark ages. Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijacker-mass murderers of 11 September, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia – after which, of course, we bombed Afghanistan. The Saudis are repressing their own Shia minority just as they now wish to destroy the Alawite-Shia minority of Syria. And we believe Saudi Arabia wants to set up a democracy in Syria?

As far as most Muslims are concerned we want rid of Al Saud and all of the self imposed rulers. What he neglects to mention is that it is up to the people of that country to rise up and force regime change. The people of Saudi and Qatar will have to decide not just a few Shia in the East of Arabia because then the whole sectarian thing will start again, it will have to be the majority of Saudis. Qataris are too well fed and well off to want a revolution, also Saudi and Qatar are ruled along more Islamic lines than most other Muslim countries so there is less motivation from an Islamic point of view – other than of course the Al Sauds have squandered the wealth of the Ummah etc etc
A big difference between Saudi and say Tunisia because in Tunisia Islam itself was suppressed in addition to the ruling family stealing the wealth of the nation and of course the usual Arab torture oppression and brutality. Tunisia was the worst Muslim country I have been to for oppressing Islam, but I haven’t been to Tajikistan or Uzbekistan etc which are worse. So Fisk is not taking into account the oppression of Islam as a factor, nor is he taking into account that revolution has to come from the people.

“Given the worsening crisis in Syria, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported that the Russian army is apparently being prepared for a mission in Syria. Citing anonymous sources in the military leadership, the newspaper said that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the general staff to work out a plan for military operations outside Russia, including in Syria.

The units being prepared for an intervention are the 76th Division of airborne forces (an especially experienced unit of the Russian army), the 15th Army Division, as well as special forces from a brigade of the Black Sea fleet, which has a base in the Syrian port of Tartus.

The details of the operational plan are being prepared by the working parties of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, to which most of the post-Soviet states belong, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to which China and Russia belong.

According to the newspaper report, deployment depends on the decision of the Russian government and the UN. However, the plans also foresee that the troops might intervene without UN approval. The Russian government has so far not confirmed the report.

On Monday last week, three Russian warships were sighted off the Syrian coast. An anonymous source from the Russian government told the Iranian newspaper Tehran Times that Moscow wants to show NATO that it will not allow any military operation against Damascus under the guise of a humanitarian mission.

Earlier, the secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Nikolai Bordjusha, had held out the possibility of using “peacekeepers” in Syria. “The task in Syria is likely to be to impose peace—primarily against the insurgents, who use weapons to solve political problems.”

Russia and China strongly oppose a military intervention by NATO in Syria, and have already blocked two UN resolutions on the issue. The US and its allies, especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and France, have stoked up a civil war in Syria and are systematically arming the so-called rebels, who consist mainly of Islamists, ex-members of the government, or Al Qaeda terrorists. Turkey is increasingly in the leadership of the US proxy war in Syria.”

“…The world is just getting over the shock of accounts of massacres emerging from Syria, like the one in al-Houla at the end of May this year. The novelty of the outrage lies in the astonishing fact that from the mainstream conservative German daily FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Christian clergy, a shock wave went through major Western media. New grizzly details of the plot were uncovered, namely that known loyalist families, including dozens of women, children and the elderly, who denied support to the insurgents fell victim to the carnage.

According to intercepted rebel phone calls, massacres and other incidents are being perpetrated with the intention of later putting the blame on the government.

But what happened on Thursday seems to be yet another remarkable pointer as to how far the US is ready to go: “This is the concern, that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that’s what the regime appears to be lining up for,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said – and the news spread quickly around the world. The announcement raises global fears as much as disgust, since several recent official international gatherings on the Syrian issue were preceded by mass killings on the ground, whether massacres or house-to-house fighting in major Syrian towns, with the brunt of the blame duly attributed to the Syrian government by the usual suspects in Western mainstream media in the usual media hype style. It seems as if the Kuwaiti “incubator plot” of the “Desert Storm” operation and the Serbian “concentration camps” cast their shadows any time the global community is involved in decision-making in US-claimed areas of interest.

Looking back at recent history, we may summarize thus: ever since Hillary Clinton’s like-minded predecessor, the gifted piano player Condoleezza Rice, threatened the whole Middle East with democracy in 2008, clearly defined strategic steps have been taken by the US to get the process going. Rice received the most popular Egyptian bloggers, whose work helped facilitate the beginning of the so-called “Arab Spring”, which in fact looks more like a blossom time for the CIA and other related US and aligned agencies. However, actions under cover look much more serious: a retired senior officer of the Egyptian army residing in Tunisia appears to have been functional in completing training for US-guided mercenaries and “Al-Qaeda” personnel since 2009. In the same year, the first advance parties of US agents arrived in Turkey to get acquainted with the area and its people. This information was obtained by Syrian officers from the not-so-small number of captured foreign fighters. Their various ID cards from Turkey, Libya, Lebanon and Jordan, among others, have been presented in many TV reports.

Against this background, recent US State Department utterings appear to be little other than a thinly veiled threat to the Syrian people, its rightful government and its international allies. The threat bears all the marks of complete bigotry, since many observers are aware that it is mostly US policy management that stages most of the killings in the region and beyond in the last 20-plus years, cooperation from all sorts of allies notwithstanding. Starting from the Balkans in the late 90s, to the still shadowy 9/11 affair and pumped-up justifications for the 2003 war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the US record of staging media hypes looks impressive by now.

Those who wonder about the perfect integration of media, policies, secret services and the military may be advised to help themselves to a most interesting pamphlet on the Internet entitled “Joint Vision 2020”, which, in an update to “Joint Vision 2010”, incorporates asymmetrical warfare and extensive public relations scheming through the reliable media. The main line is that increasingly highly integrated machinery always works. “Peace” has stopped, the US Army fulfils its tasks all the time; war in all shapes and colors is permanent….”

“muslim” terrorism is an israeli falseflag operation. done with the help of israel’s quislings in usa, europe and the arab monarchies. the “muslim” terrorism in russia is run the same way israel and it’s quislings run “muslim” terrorism everywhere else, including all those “al qaida” attacks, like 9/11 and 7/7.

“So it appears in your opinion there are no Muslims who take up arms against oppressive rulers or against foreign occupiers, only Muslims who take up arms are hired by Israel?”

don’t tell me what i think. if you want to discuss it, do so without the dishonest hasbara tactics the trolls use to try and discredit people on the web with. i can go to yahoo and get that kind of rubbish.

You are the one who made the allegations against the Muslims who took up arms in Ingushetia that they are Israeli terrorists so it is for you to establish that with evidence not me since I did not make any such claims.

Perhaps they (the terrorists killed in occupied Muslim land in Russia’s south) were Shiites trying to sell their own daughters or sisters for Mutaa and got killed by angry Sunni Russians observing Ramadan? hahahaha

“By a crafty act of political ruse, Washington has envisaged a taxing state of instability by fomenting and spearheading a civil war of attrition in Syria.

Instability is seeping through cities with prodigious rapidity and spilling into neighboring countries. Cleanly choreographed terrorist operations also deepen the crippling crisis in the country.

Although Washington seems to have decided to monitor from afar the developments in Syria without any military intervention by avoiding a Libya-style scenario, they are resorting by any means to expedite the collapse of Assad regime. During a press conference in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly stated, “So we’re going to continue to press forward in the Security Council. We’re going to continue to press the Russians because that is an important part of reaching a resolution in the Security Council. But it is worrisome that the violence is increasing, that it is more prevalent in Damascus and the suburbs. I believe – and I’ve said it before and obviously I can’t put a timeline on it – that this regime cannot survive.”

In fact, the collapse of Syria regime has long been on Washington’s agenda.”

They thought, with Damascus assasination bombs, they will shock and awe, the regime would collaps, they gave the green light to the Islamit RATS to get out their holes. The Syrian Army abosorbed the shock in 2 hours and decided to AWE. The bombing planned to trigger the collapse of the regime, turned into a big opprtionity to kill the enemy. In adressing the new goverment, Assad made it clear: The ENEMY IS within.

In few dayes the army cleansed Damuscuss, but the stupids failed to understand the Damuscus Lesson.The rates in Aleppo did the same mistake. Islamists are doomed. I challange IRD-UGAN (IRD=MONKEY) to intervene,

“Israel” afraid of Syria. A development that found its application on the ground.
“Israeli” media reported that the Zionist entity bolstered security along the borders with Syria.

“The IDF is reinforcing the fence between “Israel” and Syria by adding more barbed wire,” one “Israeli” official said, indicating that “it was motivated by fears that refugees from the Syrian side could cross it.”

An “Israeli” source further stressed that “0with the clashes spreading across the Syrian side of the border, “Israeli” troops were put on “very high” alert.”
“A lot of soldiers have been moved to the area, officially for training, but they will be there if anything big happens,” he said and pointed out that “there are also more planes and more snipers.”

A second “Israeli” security official confirmed the move to reinforce the ceasefire line but said it was motivated by fears that “”terrorists” could use the chaos to try to infiltrate the borders. He denied the move was linked to fears that the Golan could be flooded by thousands of Syrian refugees.

In parallel, “Haaretz” revealed that “the steps include strengthening fences and barriers at the border.”

” In addition, the “IDF” has dug a wide trench to prevent vehicles from approaching towns. The various areas that have been identified as sensitive fall within the sector of the “IDF’s” 36th Division,” it added.

In the discussion Al-Qasas criticised the general secretary of ‘Hizbullah’ Hasan Nasrullah at the back of his position in regards to what is happening in Syria. He said: “He has lost the compass and has placed a barrier between himself and the Islamic Ummah in a way that has no precedence”.

israeli-jewish connections behind the so-called “muslim” terror campaign that has been waged against the caucasus .the tactics israel and the west have applied there mimic the tactics they started using in afghanistan and have imported throughout west/central asia, yugoslavia and now to africa and syria/lebanon:

(bits and pieces – this is an excellent article on many aspects surrounding the ongoing israeli-western attempt to destabilise the caucasus region)

“Aiding the Chechens in their endeavor to resist Russian control is the London Circle of exiled Russians headed by the Russo-Israeli dual citizen, Boris Berezovsky. Among others, the Circle includes or at one time included: Akhmed Zakayev, former Prime Minister (1997–2007) of the earlier unrecognized secessionist Chechen Republic; Aleksandr Litvinenko, former KGB and FSB operative who accused his superiors of wanting to assassinate Berezovsky and whose death by polonium radiation poisoning has directed world attention to the activities of the London Circle in opposing Putin’s policies and fanning the flames of rebellion in Chechnya; and Alex Goldfarb, dissident microbiologist, manager of the Soros Foundation in Russia and a friend of Litvinenko.

Berezovsky, who once was second in power only to Yeltsin in the transitional period from communism to capitalism, has a special interest in the mineral resources and prospective oil pipelines in Chechnya, disdains Putin for having exiled him and for having vigorously pursued the war against the Chechens. Berezovsky argued that a military solution was not possible and openly called for peace talks. It is well known that Berezovsky had and still has a special interest in the area and has been well informed about it by Badri Patarkatsishvili, his closest friend and most important business partner, now deceased. Patarkatsishvili is a Georgian Jew with Israeli connections who helped engineer the Rose Revolution that installed Saakashvili in the presidency.”

Ramzan blames the first Chechen War on the Yeltsin-Berezovsky cabal. He attributes current incidents of insurgency to the CIA, the UK’s MI6, and Mossad infiltrators who bribe local bandits who know little or nothing about Islam with money and narcotics. President Ramzan writes:

They give narcotics to those who are responsible for the bloodshed; they then go out and bomb and blow themselves up…All of this is manipulated by Western hands. The Muslim world does not help them in this…The West wants to chop the Caucasus off from Russia. The Caucasus are Russia’s southern strategic border. If they sever the Caucasus from Russia, they are taking half of Russia. It was the Americans who created bin Laden and taught him the art of terrorism. Now they are sending groups of such foreigners to us. They are not “freedom fighters”; they are trained terrorists. We are fighting American and British Special Forces in the mountains. They are not just fighting Kadyrov. They are warring against traditional Islam. They are warring against the sovereign Russian State. Putin united Russia and saved her from chaos. He got rid of [Jewish oligarchs] Berezovsky, Gusinsky, and Khodorkovsky. You don’t really think they have forgiven him for that. They have launched a new attack on Putin, on Russia. They see Chechnya and Dagestan as weak links in the Russian State. Even some Russians do not understand. They say that Chechens are all terrorists. Putin has said clearly that the terrorists have no religion and no nationality. Many Chechens live in Europe, Turkey, and Georgia. It is from these that the West recruits terrorists and ships them to us.…We will not turn our country over to the Americans. We must live under a single roof. It is called Russia.…Let everyone know this: The Chechens will be the first to defend the Caucasus and Russia. [The Caucasus: Russia’s Strategic Border. Zavtra.No. 39(827), 23 September 2009. Interview with Ramzan Kadyrov;

The presence of Israel among the major world powers (UK, USA, Russia, China, India) contending for a stake in the Game may surprise some, but is easily understood. Israel is an important Near Eastern power. Her military power and monopoly on nuclear weaponry in the immediate area make her a regional power to be reckoned with. Moreover, Caucasian Jews have been in the area for centuries and have a long-standing familiarity with the region. Finally, since the Yeltsin Administration, Jews have become oligarchs by controlling much of Russia’s mineral wealth and, as noted above, there is continuing cooperation between Berezovsky and well-placed Georgian Jews aimed at controlling mineral wealth. In general, Jews are most likely to profit as middlemen in mineral-resources transactions between the major powers rather than act as producers, refiners, or even major consumers of oil.

Finally, although Israel is not a member of NATO, the United States maintains a special relationship with her economically, militarily, and financially. Because of this, other members of NATO fear being dragged into other Middle Eastern adventures against countries with whom they have had good relations.”

Yuk, having spent a while reading the articles that you posted links to and looking at more information of the people involved I can only conclude that anything that has Russia or Russians involved in it makes me cringe with the dirtiness of their dealings.

Feel I need a shower after reading about Russian corruption.

I really hope the Russians have to leave Tartus and are kicked out of all Muslim countries.

The Caucus region was occupied by Russia fairly recently, it should be liberated.

Russia has no right to enable the Hitler of Damascus to murder his people in order to stay in power. The Syrian people have every right to be free from criminal Russian interference in theie country. Syria has the right to be free from the cultic junta that is killing the Syrian people.

“Russia has no right to enable the Hitler of Damascus to murder his people in order to stay in power. The Syrian people have every right to be free from criminal Russian interference in theie country.”

America has every right to enable the Hittlers in Bahrain and Saudia,The Arabs have no right to be free from the “Human” American interference.

“America have military bases in almost every country in the area: Pakistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkmenistan,”
Pakistanis killed daily by US drones are not Muslims!!!

Moderator
You know he started it.
He called names the latest was Alex Cohen.
He claimed that Alex and Nahida are one person.
He isulted every body having different opinion,
Every body except him and L are not Muslims.
He insulted the grand sons of our prophet calling them little Gods.

Khalid Amayreh
‘We are not talking about people who are wrong and think they are right, we are talking about people who are wrong, and know they are wrong.’
From my objective standpoint I would say that it is you who is wrong and you are too narrow-minded, obstinate and misguided to apprehend that truth. Better you stop now, before the readers all decide they’ve had enough of your sectarian divisiveness and vote you off deLiberation.

I do not believe that those Palestinians who still live on the land of Palestine could still be there without the quality of obstinacy which in such a case as withstanding the Israeli occupation would be a positive attribute to have.

Sumoud = An Arabic word mostly translated as steadfastness

he Arabic word “Sumoud” (الصمود) is rich with meaning. In technical contexts, it is used to describe a sort of material resilience—an ability to withstand abuse and harsh conditions. You could translate it as “proof-ness”, as in “water-proof” or “bomb-proof”. The word is used much more often, however, in political contexts, particularly in reference to the plight and the struggle of Palestinians, and it describes a sort of collective cultural resilience and an ability—indeed, a strategy—to withstand and resist the abuses and horrific conditions that have been visited upon the Palestinians by Israeli aggression since 1948. It is not a war, holy or otherwise. It is not a campaign, be it military or political. It is a constellation of daily acts of civil resistance, most of them focused simply on remaining on the land, refusing to be ethnically cleansed from homes, farms and lands that Palestinians and their families have lived in for millennia.

My name is Somoe. I only need to read the comment threads to deduce that many feel the same way. Perhaps it is you that must be moved on this matter. I am not the one persistently denigrating groups of people, based upon what tribe and sect they belong to. I am one of several readers that i can discern, that are fed up with you hijacking the comment threads to perpetuate your version of events, complete with name-calling and sectarian slurs.

yes, I called and will continue to call Assad, the Hitler of Damascus, all apropriate names, given his brutal treatment of the Syrian people.

But Mursi is no Bashar Assad! A professor of Engineering, Mursi was elected by a majority of his people. He didn’t bomb his own people, using missiles, tanks, helicopter gunship, artillery, and missiles.

Looks like loyalty to the taketek may be even more shortlived though – with Shadi al-Ajel already planning on trading his in for a small van – and the taketek has only been around for a few short years.

And it looks like Lt. Col. Ali al-Nadi tried his best to show his loyalty to the poor old donkeys by banning the transportation of passengers…. but you can’t stand in the way of progress it seems

Another report of a Syrian attack against the innocent and defenceless donkeys of the Middle East

Himar Wars cont’

Lebanon

“Malia Sufangi, a young Lebanese woman, was caught in the Security Zone in November 1985 with an explosive device mounted on a donkey with which she had failed to carry out an attack. She claimed that she had been recruited and dispatched by Syrian Brigadier-General Ghazi Kanaan who supplied the explosives and instructions on how the attack was to be carried out from his headquarters in the town of Anjer in the Bekaa Valley.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal-borne_bomb_attacks

Conclusion:
Many family names, refer to the career of the grand grandfather

For example:

Haddad (Blacksmith) is a family name referring to the career of the grandfather
Ghannam: The grandfather is sheep (Ghanam) shepherded.
Jammal: The grandfather is Camel (Gamal) shepherded.
Najar: The grandfather is a carpenter.
Mulla, Sheikh, Khatib: the grandfather is a man of religion.

Consequently

Hamayreh: The grandfather, a man dealing with donkeys.
In Yemen there is Himyar.
If Khalid insists that his family name is Amayreh, not Hamayerh, it up to him.
However there is a tribe in Saudi Arabia named Al-Amayer. They live in Qutteef in East Arabia.
Unfortunately for Khalid they are Shea.

The new story that captured the corrupt Western media’s attention was Syria. The conflict was heating up, and the “international community” was being pressed to take action against the country. “Assad is killing his own people,” they said, without offering any evidence. “This is the next domino to fall in the Arab Spring, the rebels must be supported and Assad has to step down,” so went the propaganda. And yadda yadda. The media’s insane lies were repeated for months. Major media channels were engaged in non-stop propaganda warfare to destroy the independent Syrian state and reduce Syrians to slavery.

But then something remarkable and unexpected happened. Some Western journalists began telling the truth about the origins of the conflict, the true motives behind the West’s anti-Syria propaganda, and the nature of the unpopular Syrian opposition.

The spell was broken.

In June, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported that the infamous Houla massacre was committed not by Assad’s forces, as it was claimed by the Western media at first, but by the NATO-backed terrorist opposition.

The official narrative about the Syrian conflict fell apart at that point. The moral case for overthrowing Assad was lost because it was based on total lies. The naked aggression by NATO’s barbaric pawns against Syrian civilians was clear to see for anyone who was paying attention.

“While having established dictatorial regimes in their own states, these [Arab and Western] countries speak of democracy,” Fars News Agency quoted Nader Qazipour as saying on Sunday.

Qazipour said the foreign operations against Syria are aimed at eliminating this country from the anti-Israeli resistance front, and expressed optimism that the Syrians will overcome these conspiracies.”

I think the Iranian official is interested first and foremost in maintaining the pro-Iranian junta in Syria in order to expedite Iranian interests in the predominantly Muslim Sunni country.

Israel is simply a red herring.

If Iran were sincer about the interests of the people of Syria, it would pay some attention to the manifestly reprresive nature of the cultic regime in Syria, where there are no human rights, no civil liberties, no elections, no true parliamnts (there is a theatrical People;s Council-but it is a joke!!) (See Amnesty’s latest report on Syria.

This is not due to the revolution, this is the nature od the regime.

In short, Iran supports the tyrannical regime because the regime is facilitating the spread of Shiite schools and temples to convert the People of Syria by offering them financial and sexual inducements.

Deliberation: I think we agreed to desist from insults and name calling.

Alex wrote the following this evening.

“If Khalid insists that his family name is Amayreh, not Hamayerh, it up to him,”

It is clear he is trying to circumvent the rules of deliberation.

My name is Khalid Amayreh. I am not an anonymous person, I AM WELL KNOWN AROUND THE WORLD, I am MENTIONED HALF A MILLION TIMEs IN THE NET. I graduated from some of the best American universities. I speak five languages, and was once asked to serve as an ambassador for the Palestinian Authority.

My picture is there, I don’t hid my name, like others do! I don’t behind a false name for certain reasons. You can alway google Khalid Amayreh to see who he is.

This is certainly better that indulging in the childish behavior that only underscores the level of thinking and education of the insults-hurlers and name-callers.

Hennce, I therefore urge Deliberation to stop this absurdity..This game of make believe if game it is.

We are dealig with people who think personal insults can make up for weak arguments and manifestly mendacious points of views.

If certain people want to settle scores with Khalid Amayreh because he exposed their bankruptcy and lies, let them debate him instead of playing the childish game of name calling.

Deliberation: I think we agreed to desist from insults and name calling.

Alex wrote the following this evening.

“If Khalid insists that his family name is Amayreh, not Hamayerh, it up to him,”

It is clear he is trying to circumvent the rules of deliberation.

My name is Khalid Amayreh. I am not an anonymous person, I AM WELL KNOWN AROUND THE WORLD, I am MENTIONED HALF A MILLION TIMEs IN THE NET. I graduated from some of the best American universities. I speak five languages, and was once asked to serve as an ambassador for the Palestinian Authority.

My picture is there, I don’t hide my name like others do! I don’t hide my identity behind a false name for certain reasons. You can alway google Khalid Amayreh to see who he is.

This is certainly better that indulging in the childish behavior that only underscores the level of thinking and education of the insults-hurlers and name-callers.

Hennce, I urge Deliberation to stop this absurdity..This game of make believe if game it is.

We are dealig with people who think personal insults can make up for weak arguments and manifestly mendacious point of views.

If certain people want to settle scores with Khalid Amayreh because he exposed their bankruptcy and lies, let them debate him instead of playing the childish game of name calling. Insulters are weak in the mind.

sure, i would imagine you’re free to do what you want. it’s not like shin bet or the idf would be coming after you. it was 3:58 am in jerusalem when you posted that. i like how you can post around the clock and never get tired. it’s a sign of a superior being.

[edit] BiographyIn 1981, Khalid Amayreh earned a BA in Journalism at the University of Oklahoma. He earned an MA in Journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983. Amayreh has been a correspondent for Sharja TV (1994–2001); Islamic Republic News Agency (1995–2006); Middle East International, London (1995–2003); Al Ahram Weekly (1997–present); and Al Jazeera English (2003–2006).

[edit] Conflict with the Palestinian AuthorityAmayreh is barred from leaving the West Bank. For many years Amayreh was confined to his home village of Dura near Hebron by the Israeli military authorities and later by the Palestinian Authority (PA).[1] The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group issued reports and press releases relevant to the harassment of Amayreh by both Israel and Palestinian authorities.[2]

On 22 January 2009, Amayreh was arrested by the police forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA). He was questioned and imprisoned in a blacked-out room for two days. The PA stated the reason for his arrest was not his reporting about financial corruption in the PA but suspicion of affiliation with Hamas. Others state the reason for his arrest was his statements about the collaborationist nature of the PA during the 2008-2009 Gaza War.[3][non-primary source needed] He was released due to a mass outcry and protest at his arrest.

He was once again harassed on several occasions by the PA beginning in January 2012. The purpose of the continuous harassment is not totally clear, but it might have something to do with the PA’s declared hostility against Hamas and any of its sympathizers.[4][non-primary source needed] [5]

[edit] Views and opinionsIn 2008, Amayreh stated that “It is well known that Israel, through the numerous Zionist lobbies and pressure groups, more or less controls America’s politics, media and financial institutions…. But America doesn’t lack the brain power to know the facts and find out the truth about the umbilical connection between the Israeli factor and the ravaging financial crisis now facing the US… I am afraid there will be more bad news in this regard if America doesn’t reclaim its liberty from the Zionist Rober [sic] Barons who have come to tightly control the American financial establishment.” This article was picked up by many other blogs, Web sites, and listserves.[6][7] In 2010, Amayreh described Helen Thomas and Fidel Castro as the “elderly targets” of “Zionist supremacists from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles,” supporting calls for Jews to return to Poland and their “native homelands.” [8] In March 2011, he wrote that Israelis are “pathological liars from Eastern Europe” and that Jerusalem has been “violated and raped by Zionist Jews for many years.” He described Zionism as a “genocidal, racist, rapacious, covetous, and of course utterly mendacious… a malignant cancer” and claimed that Israel wishes to erect a “Hebrew empire” encompassing “Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia, northern Egypt and the islands of Crete and Cyprus.”[9][10][11][12]

“Though not yet announced by the Saudi authorities, the death of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been confirmed to Voltaire Network by unofficial souces.

Prince Bandar had just been appointed head of Saudi intelligence on July 24: a promotion which was interpreted as a reward for having organized the attack in Damascus on July 18. The Saudi services, with logistical support from the CIA, had managed to blow up the headquarters of the Syrian National Security during a Crisis Cell meeting: Generals Assef Chaoukat, Daoud Rajha and Hassan Tourkmani were killed instantly. General Amin Hicham Ikhtiar died soon after from his wounds. This operation, called “Damascus Volcano” was the signal for the attack on the capital by a swarm of mercenaries, mainly coming from Jordan.

Prince Bandar was himself the target of a bomb attack on July 26, and subsequently succumbed to his injuries.

His death constitutes a serious blow to the whole system of Western covert action in the Muslim world. It took Syria only one week to mount this spectacular reprisal operation.”

“No body is gloating hypocrite” A hypocrite is one whose tongue says one thing, but conceals in his heart a different matter. But I do belive in what I say. I may be wrong, but I am not a hypocrite. And Toqya is not part of my religion.

Perhaps you should find another name for me??? I know you a huge inventory of insulting names. This is a matter of traditions for you.

I know that you are anxious, edgy, irate and freustrated. But I advise you to exercise som calm, some mental equanimity, some serentity. Think twice before calling people hypocrits and other names, you won’t lose anything.

I know that you are anxious, edgy, irate and freustrated. But I advise you to exercise som calm, some mental equanimity, some serentity. Think twice before calling people hypocrits and other names, you won’t lose anything.

This is advice that I think all of us, including the author himself, would do well to follow.

In our Sunni Islam, it it is wrong to gloat over a person’s death. You will die tommorow, your opponent will die after tommorow!

This doesn’t mean that one is infatuated with a given deceased’s legacy.

I am no fan of the Saudi dynasty, I know they are corrupt and insincere in their Islamic pretentions, however I am not willing to celebrate any one’s death.

Maybe Shiites have a different thought. I don’t control people’s hearts.

As to Muhammed Hussein Fadflullah, he was probably one of the best Shiite ulema.

He did’t curse the companions of the Prophet, He didn’t say the Quraan was Muharraf, and he flatly denied the concocted Shiite narrative that Omar Ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) pushed the door of Ali’s house against the belly of Fatima, who was pregnant, causing her to abort Al-Mohsen.

If indeeed the Saudis were involved in the death of many innocent people during in the American aatempt to murder Muhammed Fadlullah, then their punishment will be great in this world and the heeafter.

However, this is the first time ever I hear of this allegation, even from Shiite sources.

Frankly, I doubt the veracity of your claim

I don’t support the Saudis, but one must be accurate and honest, even when accusing wrong doers.

It’s open season on christians in Syria by the foreign terrorist thugs supported by USrael:

From ICH”
America’s Syrian Jihad By Daniel McAdams July 30, 2012 ”
Anyone really paying attention to US policy in the Middle East these past several months must be wondering whether Washington has gone insane. US foreign policy under the triple threat of Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Hillary Clinton has gone to openly supporting what the German intelligence services (echoed in several prominent and panicked mainstream German media sources) have found to be PREDOMINANTLY al-Qaeda-BACKED TERRORISTATTACKS inside Syria. [emph. added] Americans can be forgiven for scratching their heads at the reality that the United States government is actively supporting in Syria what it has spent the last eleven years fighting just a few thousand miles away in Afghanistan.

As RT so poignantly puts it: ‘America’s Syrian friends and Afghan foes are same people’

When Syria’s Christian defense minister was murdered last week by a suicide bomber using signature al-Qaeda techniques, the United States pointedly refused to condemn it as an act of terrorism. Can you imagine how the US would react if the US defense secretary and Obama’s national security adviser were blown up by a radical Islamic suicide bomber? Would we not characterize it as terrorism?

On RT, which has been one of the sole voices of objective journalism and in-depth reporting, author and journalist Afshin Rattansi today makes this critical observation:

“…. As for the United States and NATO nations, one does not want to sectarianize it the way the international media do, but you never see on corporate stations anything about the Christians. The suicide bomb who killed the Syrian defense minister — that guy was a Christian. I have a figure here that 50,000 Christians are fleeing from Homs because of American and European-backed Islamism in Syria”.

“The bishop, who holds the title of archimandrite, said a leading church in Syria, Mar Elian, has been destroyed. He said another church, Our Lady of Peace, was occupied by the rebels….

“The Vatican determined that some of the Sunni attackers were aligned with the Free Syrian Army, based in Turkey. An FSA commander, identified as Abdul Salam Harba, was said to have ordered Christians out of central Syria.”

Islamic jihadists backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and, as we now know, supported by the US from a secret base in Turkey, have laid siege to the largest Syrian city, Aleppo, forcing the population to flee in terror. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta preposterously claimed today that the Syrian army’s attempts to liberate Aleppo from the Saudi-backed Salafi extremists was “the nail in Assad’s coffin.”

“Islamic jihadists backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and, as we now know, supported by the US from a secret base in Turkey, have laid siege to the largest Syrian city, Aleppo, forcing the population to flee in terror.”

They are fleeing from Assads tanks and helicopters because every knows there will be a massacre they are not fleeing from the FSA.

Of course some might be fleeing with their small boys if they learned there was a Vatican representative in the area.

The vatican narratives are lacking in credibility. The peple of Syria suffered hundreds of thousands of injuries at the hands of the regime? Entire cities have been destroyed. Hundreds of mosques as well.

How many followers of the Holy See were killed at the hands of freedom fighters in Syria?

Obama administration support for Syrian rebels is based on a United Nations authorized report from November 2011. In that document, Syria is accused of committing “crimes against humanity.” The report’s co-author is a board member at a Washington, D.C. based think tank that just happens to have the former chairman of ExxonMobil, a consultant for the Saudi Binladin Group, and a former CIA executive on its board of directors.

Much of the U.S. and European press on the so-called civil war originates from a tiny organization in the United Kingdom called the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (the Observatory). The one man operation is run by a longtime opponent of Syrian Bashar Hafez al-Assad.

“The Kronen Zeitung is Austria’s largest newspaper, with a daily readership of around three million people. Yesterday, those readers were treated to the image on top of war-torn Aleppo, bombed out and desperate. Except, as one sharp-eyed Redditor points out, that wasn’t the scene at all. It was just another Photoshop job.

Just to be clear, the family in the photograph is, in fact, in Syria; the original photo (below) came from the European Pressphoto Agency. But merely fleeing a city ravaged by guns and mortars apparently isn’t quite dramatic enough on its own. The editors of the Krone—as it’s commonly called—needed this baby to sing.

Using Photoshop to make actresses and models look unrealistically attractive is bad enough. Using it to make a part of the world that has enough problems as it is look even more apocalyptic? That’s just disgraceful”

The Syrian chargé d’affaires in London, Khaled al-Ayoubi, has resigned, the British Foreign Office said on Monday.

“Mr al-Ayoubi has told us that he is no longer willing to represent a regime that has committed such violent and oppressive acts against its own people, and is therefore unable to continue in his position,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Al-Ayoubi was the most senior Syrian diplomat serving in London, it added. “His departure is another blow to the Assad regime. It illustrates the revulsion and despair the regime’s actions are provoking amongst Syrians from all walks of life, inside the country and abroad.

On his 5th trip to Syria, author Jürgen Todenhöfer got to interview Assad . More interesting to me is his own statement on the violence contained in this translation of his article published in Bild

I have to criticize a lot at Assad. He bears the responsibility, that his security forces have shot in the crowd and killed civilians during the first protests in Daraa (Deraa). He has to answer for, that his security forces attack neighborhoods, where the armed rebels have entrenched behind civilians, with heavy weapons. It also kills civilians.

The radicalized groups of rebels, I criticize, because they kill civilians deliberately and then output them as victims of the government. This “massacre marketing strategy” is part of the most hideous thing that I have ever experienced in warfare.

I blame the radical factions of the rebels that they have now allied with al-Qaeda fighters. I had a long talk with a captured Al Qaeda fighter, who was involved in a bomb attack in Damascus that has tattered 70 people.

How does this charlatan journalist know that they (the freedom fighters) kill civlians? It is only the government that murders civlians. Had they been killed civilians, the vast bulk of Syrian civilians wouldn’t have embraced them and joined the fight for the freedom of Syria.

If the “rebels” were killing civilians, the government should at least allow world media to expose them!!!!!!

Besides, he contradicts himself; perhaps he received some money from the Hitler of Syria. It is a classical war propaganda.

He traveled to Syria and interviewed people Khalid. I know in your world that the Qatar and Saudi weapons that the FSA use could only possibly kill ‘bad’ people, whilst the regimes naturally kill mainly innocent civilians, but in the world I live in I think that such claims are evocative of cynical propaganda that we have seen time and time again. I am certain that both sides have done shitty things. Perhaps you think that the scores of people killed and injured in the bomb attack in Damascus were all murderers from the evil regime? How convenient and unlikely that scenario is……

Other journalists who have interviewed those fleeing their home and seeking refuge report that some of those fleeing fear the opposition forces more than they fear the regime.

According to the U.S. and its NATO allies, the Damascus regime is engaging in a one-sided, murderous war against its own people, who simply seek democracy.

and indeed many, many times before:

The United States suggests that its principal reason for seeking regime change in Syria is to promote “democracy” — a tarnished rationale often employed in recent decades to undermine or destroy governments that displease the U.S. superpower, such as in Iran in the 1950s, the Dominican Republic in the 1960s, Chile in the 1970s, Nicaragua in the 1980s, Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Iraq in the 2000s, and Libya in the 2010s, among other instances.

“All through the day, numerous media have tried to ascertain whether or not Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been the victim of a deadly attack on July 26, as announced by Voltaire Network citing a non official-source [1].

Strangely, Saudi authorities have not responded to inquiries by the media, refusing to confirm or deny the death of their newly appointed chief of the intelligence services.

Clearly, regardless of whether the Prince is dead or alive, such muteness denotes a serious disarray within the Saudi royal family.”

“Saudi Arabia has long been working on a plan to overthrow the regime in Syria and sabotage the Islamic Republic through Bandar bin Sultan who served as the Saudi ambassador to the US from 1983 to 2005. In 2006, Bandar visited Washington a couple of times and discussed the Bush administration’s plan for a new strategy in the Middle East with former Vice president Dick Cheney and Bush’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy Elliott Abrams.”

There is much more to the conflict in Syria than meets the eye. Syria is currently the scene of a cold war between the US, NATO, Israel, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on one side and Russia, China, Iran, and the Resistance Bloc on the other hand. Amidst the fighting between the Syrian government and anti-government forces, an intense intelligence war has also been taking place.

Days after the appointment of Prince Bandar and the attack of the Syrian Crisis Unit an attack on General Intelligence’s Headquarters in Riyadh was reported by Yemen’s Al-Fajr Press and then widely quoted by the Iranian media. The blast is reported to have killed Banadar’s number two man, the deputy director-general of Saudi external intelligence, while he was entering the building. Rumours are also circulating that Bandar may have been hurt or killed. Saudi Arabia has remained silent over the issue.

The Iranian official doesn’t know what he is saying, it is just empty rhetoric, reflecting the Iranian predicament. Iran itself is teetering under harsh sanctions ans its economy is collapsing. The Iranian currency has lost most of its value. Iranians are eager to flee their country for freedom and a better life.

The regime of the Hitler of Damascus is falling down, slowly but definitely, it is abut to collapse from within, the regime’s generals are fleeing to Turky, the diplomats and ambbassadors are also defecting, and even his own cultic sect is diatancing itself from him.

He is like Gaddafi in his final days.

Iran and Hezbullah must accustom themselves to living with Syria withourt Assad.

If the Syrian freedom fighters were allies of the US, the US would crush the cultic regime in Damascus in 48 hours.

It wouldn’t have allowd the regime to destroy cities, murder tens of thousands, rape thousands and turn Syria into a huge killing field.

The Iranians, whom I know well, I would say very well, have a tendency to exaggertate, believe in conspiracies, and even lie to convince themselves that it is all America’s fault and that they have done nothing wrong themselves.

“This is implied in a secret file recently leaked by a person(s) apparently close to the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman. It contains a record of conversations between Bibi Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the latter’s recent visit to Israel. Israelis seem to have no doubts about its authenticity. Counterpunch received the original file, and here are the highlights of this conversation (in our translation from Hebrew):

Netanyahu asked Putin to facilitate Bashar Assad’s departure. “You can appoint his successor, and we shall not object , said the Israeli Prime Minister. “There is one condition – the successor must break with Iran».
Putin responded: we have no candidate for Bashar’s successor. Do you?
No, we don’t, replied Netanyahu, but we shall tell you our preference soon.

Apparently, Israel can influence the rebels, inasmuch as it can bear on them to accept a successor acceptable to Tel Aviv. This means that the rebels’ chain of command goes beyond unruly field commanders, beyond Qatar and Saudi Arabia, beyond Paris and Washington, all the way to Israel. It is well known that the rebels seekfriendship with Israel, but nobody thought that Israel was able to control them to such an extent.”

“Labor Party Knesset Member Isaac Herzog says Syrian opposition leaders have told him they want peace with Israel after Syrian President Bashar Assad falls. Herzog refused to name his sources because he said they fear retribution but that they are aligned with the main rebel factions in Syria. Herzog also said Israel should supply medical and humanitarian assistance to the rebels. However, he ruled out military aid to rebels fighting President Assad’s Alawite regime.”

“Syria’s foreign minister on Sunday blamed Israel for the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

“The Zionist regime is at the forefront of the plot to bring down the Syrian government and to destabilize the country,” said Walid Muallem, speaking at a joint press conference in Tehran on Sunday afternoon with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

Israel’s stance on Syria is proof of an international plot against Assad’s regime, Salehi added.

According to Salehi, evidence of an anti-Syria plot can be seen in “the stance Israel has adopted.” Iran’s foreign minister said he was surprised that certain regional countries are walking the same path as the Israelis, and said those countries should rethink their stance and actions.”

“The government emphasizes that it has regained its control on most areas that were reportedly held by rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and its industrial capital.

On Monday, the Syrian army overran part of the rebel-held Salaheddin district of Aleppo, the city’s most populous area and the stronghold of the rebels’ Free Syrian Army.

The Syrian government dismissed the media reports that the rebels have ever achieved gains in some restive areas in Aleppo, saying those reports are no more than a “psychological war aiming to breathe life in the rebels’ deteriorating morale.”

Turkey sent a convoy of about 20 vehicles carrying troops, missile batteries and armored vehicles to its border with Syria on Monday due to a growing concern about the security on its southern frontier, media reports said.

Still, Turkey is not expected to get involved in a war with Syria, particularly after a recent warning by Iran, Syria’s main ally in the region, that it would stand alongside Syria in any attack it might be exposed to in accordance with the joint defense accord.”

SYRIA: REGIME CHANGE AND SMART POWER
The rise and fall of Turkey’s Erdogan

this week old article is interesting for several reasons:

1. the syrian government didn’t fall, as the author expected.

2. the bare nekked israeli influence running things behind the scenes being , well, laid bare, including the terrorist merc cannon fodder being used against the syrian people.

3. it adds more to speculation that israel is setting up turkey, via the kurds in israel’s pocket, for a royal rogering. talking back to an insecure master, especially a jewish one, even if it was mostly for show, is never forgiven.

[There are] many layers of friction between various elements of the FSA. There are real and serious rivalries between exiles and those inside Syria, sub-splits between those groups, deep schisms between the armed and political opposition, and among some armed groups in different areas. At the moment most of their guns are pointed in the same direction, but it’s easy to predict what may happen when their common enemy falls.

The video released last week in Aleppo that appeared to show FSA fighters executing more than a dozen accused regime thugs, called shabiha, and Aawayini, meaning collaborators, at a school will not help to win the trust of those Syrians skeptical of the insurgents’ motives. It may also help push some opposition supporters away who are disgusted by the FSA’s real or rumored use of violence.

“They talk about wanting democracy, but I am now too scared to even voice my opinion in public for fear I’ll be called a collaborator and be killed,” a 60-year old retired schoolteacher, named Obeyda, told me over a coffee in her living room in Muhajirin in late July. She used to be very critical of the regime but now she’s more critical of the FSA.

When I asked one opposition activist about the murder of suspected or real collaborators, he justified the violence on the basis that these collaborators act as government snoops, giving names of protests and activists who are then abducted by the regime; they may face imprisonment, torture and a painful death.